pdftex

PDFTEX(1)PDFTEX(1)

NAME

pdftex, pdfinitex, pdfvirtex - PDF output from TeX

SYNOPSIS

pdftex [options] [&format ] [ file | \commands ]

DESCRIPTION

Run the pdfTeX typesetter on file, usually creating file.pdf. If the
file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. Instead
of a filename, a set of pdfTeX commands can be given, the first of
which must start with a backslash. With a &format argument pdfTeX uses
a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is
usually better to use the -fmtformat option instead.
pdfTeX is a version of TeX that can create PDF files as well as DVI
files.
In DVI mode, pdfTeX can be used as a complete replacement of the TeX
engine.
The typical use of pdfTeX is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF
output has been enabled. The pdftex command uses the equivalent of the
plain TeX format, and the pdflatex command uses the equivalent of the
LaTeX format. To generate formats, use the -ini switch.
The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdfTeX’s analogues to the ini-tex and virtex commands. In this installation, they are symbolic links
to the pdftex executable. These symbolic links may not exist at all.
In PDF mode, pdfTeX can natively handle the PDF, JPG, and PNG graphics
formats. pdfTeX’s handling of its command-line arguments is similar to
that of of the other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.

OPTIONS

This version of pdfTeX understands the following command line options.
-enc Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only effective in
combination with -ini. For documentation of the encTeX exten-
sions see http://www.olsak.net/enctex.html.
-file-line-error
Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is simi-
lar to the way many compilers format them.
-no-file-line-error
Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.
-file-line-error-style
This is the old name of the -file-line-error option.
-fmtformat
Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the
name by which pdfTeX was called or a %& line.
-halt-on-error
Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro-
cessing.
-help Print help message and exit.
-ini Start in INI mode, which is used to dump formats. The INI mode
can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and
basic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.
-interactionmode
Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be either batchmode,
nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of
these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands.
-ipc Send DVI or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output
file. Whether this option is available is the choice of the
installer.
-ipc-start
As -ipc, and starts the server at the other end as well.
Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
-jobnamename
Use name for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name
of the input file.
-kpathsea-debugbitmask
Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask.
See the Kpathsea manual for details.
-mktexfmt
Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
-mltex Enable MLTeX extensions. Only effective in combination with
-ini.
-no-mktexfmt
Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
-output-commentstring
In DVI mode, use string for the DVI file comment instead of the
date. This option is ignored in PDF mode.
-output-directorydirectorydirectory instead of the current directory. Look up input files
in directory first, the along the normal search path.
-output-formatformat
Set the output format mode, where format must be either pdf or
dvi. This also influences the set of graphics formats under-
stood by pdfTeX.
-parse-first-line
If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
to look for a dump name or a -translate-file option.
-no-parse-first-line
Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.
-prognamename
Pretend to be program name. This affects both the format used
and the search paths.
-recorder
Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files
opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls.
-shell-escape
Enable the \write18{command} construct. The command can be any
shell command. This construct is normally disallowed for secu-
rity reasons.
-no-shell-escape
Disable the \write18{command} construct, even if it is enabled
in the texmf.cnf file.
-src-specials
In DVI mode, insert source specials into the DVI file. This
option is ignored in PDF mode.
-src-specialswhere
In DVI mode, insert source specials in certain placed of the DVI
file. where is a comma-separated value list: cr, display, hbox,
math, par, parent, or vbox. This option is ignored in PDF mode.
-translate-filetcxname
Use the tcxname translation table to set the mapping of input
characters and re-mapping of output characters.
-default-translate-filetcxname
Like -translate-file except that a %& line can overrule this
setting.
-version
Print version information and exit.

ENVIRONMENT

See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the ‘Path specifications’
node) for precise details of how the environment variables are used.
The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables.
One caveat: In most pdfTeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
give directly to pdfTeX, because ~ is an active character, and hence is
expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such as
Metafont, do not have this problem.
TEXMFOUTPUT
Normally, pdfTeX puts its output files in the current directory.
If any output file cannot be opened there, it tries to open it
in the directory specified in the environment variable TEXMFOUT-
PUT. There is no default value for that variable. For example,
if you say pdftexpaper and the current directory is not
writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, pdfTeX attempts to
create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.pdf, if any output is pro-
duced.)
TEXINPUTS
Search path for \input and \openin files. This should probably
start with ‘‘.’’, so that user files are found before system
files. An empty path component will be replaced with the paths
defined in the texmf.cnf file. For example, set TEXINPUTS to
".:/home/usr/tex:" to prepend the current direcory and
‘‘/home/user/tex’’ to the standard search path.
TEXFORMATS
Search path for format files.
TEXPOOL
search path for pdftex internal strings.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when pdfTeX is compiled.
TFMFONTS
Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.

NOTES

This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documen-
tation for this version of pdfTeX can be found in the info manual
Web2C:ATeXimplementation.

BUGS

This version of pdfTeX implements a number of optional extensions. In
fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
with the definition of pdfTeX. When such extensions are enabled, the
banner printed when pdfTeX starts is changed to print pdfTeXk instead
of pdfTeX.
This version of pdfTeX fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimen-
sions are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but
when it does the generated DVI file will be invalid. Whether a gener-
ated PDF file would be usable is unknown.

AVAILABILITY

pdfTeX is available for a large variety of machine architectures and
operation systems. pdfTeX is part of all major TeX distributions.
Information on how to get pdfeTeX and related information is available
at the http://tug.orgTUG website. The most recent version of pdfTeX
is available for anonymous ftp at the http://www.pdftex.de/tex/pdftex/pdfTeXdevelopmentsite.
The following pdfeTeX related mailing list is available: pdf-tex@tug.org. This is a mailman list; to subscribe send a message con-
taining subscribe to pdftex-request@tug.org. More about the list can
be found at the http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdftexmailinglist
website.

SEE ALSO

tex(1), mf(1).

AUTHORS

The primary authors of pdfTeX are Han The Thanh, Petr Sojka, and Jiri
Zlatuska.
TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his sys-
tem for Pascal programs. It was ported to Unix at Stanford by Howard
Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel Curtis. The version now offered with
the Unix TeX distribution is that generated by the to C system
(web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.
The encTeX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.
Web2C 7.5.4 25 March 2004 PDFTEX(1)